Republican candidates for South Carolina governor took the stage Tuesday at Wofford College in Spartanburg for their final debate before the June 9 primary, with businessman Rom Reddy among the attendees watching the race narrow into its closing stretch.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman and Attorney General Alan Wilson were also there as the party’s contenders made one last pitch to voters before ballots are cast. Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette had been invited but declined, choosing instead to hold a campaign event in North Myrtle Beach.
The debate was the last scheduled meeting of the candidates before the primary, and access was limited to those who met a 5% minimum polling average, according to the state Republican Party. That threshold kept state Sen. Josh Kimbrell out of the room. For a contest already defined by a crowded field and competing claims to the party’s mantle, the invitation list underscored how tightly the race has been winnowed in its final days.
If no candidate wins outright on June 9 and the race goes to a runoff, the next and final debate is already on the calendar for June 16 in Conway on the campus of Coastal Carolina University. That makes Tuesday’s forum less a finish line than a marker of how little time remains for the candidates to change the shape of the contest.
For now, the debate closed the book on the main stage before Republicans choose their nominee for governor, and it did so with the field split between those who qualified to argue their case in Spartanburg and those who were left to campaign elsewhere.
